Phishing

An example of a phishing email, disguised as an official email from a (fictional) bank. The sender is attempting to trick the recipient into revealing secure information by "confirming" it at the phisher's website.

Phishing is a way that criminals get sensitive information (like usernames or passwords). It is a method of social engineering. Very often, phishing is done by electronic mail. This mail appears to come from a bank or other service provider. It usually says that because of some change in the system, the users need to re-enter their usernames/passwords to confirm them. The emails usually have a link to a page that looks almost like that of the real bank.

Phishing allows criminals to get access to bank accounts, or other accounts like shopping, auction or gaming accounts. It can also be used for identity theft.

Phishing grew by 42% in January of 2005: 8,829 E-mails with phishing were sent in December of 2004 but that grew to 12,845 by end of January 2005.

The number of web pages with phishing grew from 1,740 to 2,560 in the same period.